Lancaster City Museum has recently acquired some interesting items linked to the time when the Standfast & Barracks site was a World War One internment camp.
And most of them are now on temporary display upstairs at the Museum.
Two of the acquisitions are bones which were intricately carved by the prisoners of war as a way of passing away the time. There is a tradition of prisoners carving bones, primarily to alleviate boredom, notably during the Napoleonic War.
One of the bones reads ‘1914 Lancaster 1915’ and is a fine example of those carved during internment in Lancaster. It has a rose on one side and is also decorated with a wall pattern at the bottom and chain motif at the top. The use of the chain motif is at present thought to be a unique decoration compared to other bones in the collection both in Lancaster and on the Isle of Man. As this bone is dated 1914 it means it is one of the earliest bones produced by prisoners of war during World War One.
The second group of items acquired are 18 drawings and cartoons by Adolph Ernest Jean von du Stratton who was initially interned at Lancaster. Many of the drawings are signed and dated ‘Lancaster 1915’, with a few being noted as being done on the Isle of Man.
The drawings give an insight in to camp life and many show Von du Stratton’s humorous observations of his fellow internees. Von de Stratton was a ship’s steward who was arrested on the R.M.S. Arabic on 16 August, 1914 and then transferred to Lancaster.